WASHINGTON, D.C. The transition team for President-elect Barack Obama has plenty of money and a star-studded team of high-profile dignitaries willing to work for nothing, but it’s running short of one precious commodity–wastebaskets for the blizzard of “open letters” from trade association executive directors and public policy windbags that incoming presidents typically receive.
A start
“An open letter to an incoming president typically contains a plea for special treatment wrapped in a gauzy but tissue-thin wrapper of public interest,” said Amy Willits, an assistant professor of history at Mankato State University who specializes in the American presidency. “Many people don’t realize that Arizona was admitted to the union by William Howard Taft just so that he would have the Grand Canyon to dump open letters into.”
Taft: “You’d be fat too if you had to eat 10 to 12 open letters for breakfast every day.”
To date, President-elect Obama has received open letters from Nobel Prize-winning honorary degree collector Toni Morrison; the National Association of Businesses Who Have Not Yet Received a Bailout; and Carl Everett, a former major league baseball player who seeks the appointment of a commission to investigate his claim that the 1969 moon landing was a hoax, and that “Europe”, an alleged continent, does not exist.
“Who the hell is Carl Everett?”
Because of the historic nature of the Obama presidency, his open-letter count two months before his inauguration is far ahead of his predecessors, with the exception of Dan Quayle, who received a deluge of fan mail from readers of Tiger Beat, a magazine for teenaged girls, who considered the Indiana Senator “dreamy”.
Dan Quayle and Tiger Beat: People forget just how cute he was.
A typical open-letter to Obama appears in the following sidebar:
Dear President-elect Obama:
America’s valet-parking operators salute your historic election. We stand ready to assist you and your cabinet in parking your Cadillac Escalades, Lincoln Navigators and other large black SUVs, and to protect them from parking lot scratches and dings.
But we must never forget America’s hard-working parking valets–guys who play by the rules, dress up like penguins, and help the ladies get out of the front seat without shooting any you-know-what at stiff cheap Republican couples standing on the curb.
“Don’t be silly, dear. What would a beaver be doing outside a fancy restaurant?”
We urge you to pass the Valet Parking Operators Relief Act of 2009, which will help cushion this vital industry from the inevitable and deleterious effect of the current fiscal crisis.
